Trending News: Would You Have The Guts To Take This Guy's Last-Minute Vacation?

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Long Story Short

A Scottish bank employee woke up confused to find that he’d booked a £520 flight to Brazil after a night of revelry. Unable to get a refund, he took the trip anyway and had a surprisingly good time.

Long Story

Lots of us do dumb stuff when we’re drunk, particularly when it comes to money. An extra bottle for the table, an impulse buy on Amazon (it’s the only way I buy new toys for my cat), etc. Even if they’re not catastrophic, they’re still a little embarrassing. But what if, instead of blowing $20 on a Crinkly Cat Tunnel, you woke up to find out that in your blackout stupor, you booked a flight to Brazil for £520 (nearly $800)? If you’re Scotsman Jamie Ather, you say “f*ck it, let’s do this.”

Ather’s impromptu trip wasn’t quite as daring as it sounds. After hitting Glasgow’s club scene into the wee hours on Saturday, he awoke one Sunday morning in August to find that he’d booked a flight from Glasgow to Brazil at 5:12 am Sunday. He had no recollection of doing so, and he made the mistake of waiting until Monday to try to cancel the trip — the airline only allowed for cancellations within 24 hours of booking. So, rather than waste $800, he arranged to take the time off from his bank job and go on the trip.

"I had absolutely no memory of doing it because I was drunk, and it had honestly never even crossed by mind to go to South America," he told The Independent.

The (perhaps unsurprising) twist, of course, is that Ather ended up having a blast. He crossed the border to hike Machu Picchu, visited a sloth reserve, hung out on Copacabana Beach and (of course) partied in Rio de Janeiro. In the end, his concern wasn’t so much that he’d enjoy the trip, but that going it alone on such short notice was out of character for him.